Prohibition created more crime because it led to corruption and the “cure” was worse than the original problem (Sifakis 725). During prohibition the number of crimes increased and this made organized crime very "popular". Many criminal groups regularly earned money through illegal actions such as drinking and selling alcohol (organized crime and prohibition 1). Alcohol increased organized crime during Prohibition through 18th Amendment loopholes, speakeasies, doctor prescriptions, and bootlegging. Bootlegged alcohol was one of the main reasons why organized crime began (Organized Crime and Prohibition 1). Smuggling occurred when alcohol was smuggled into the country from across the border. However, sometimes illegal alcohol was obtained in the United States (Sifakis 725). Organized crime can be defined as illegal, for-profit activity on a city, interstate, and even international scale (Beehner 1). The crime rate increased because profit motivated people to engage in illegal activities (Organized Crime and Prohibition 1). Prohibition helped organized crime because even though alcohol was illegal, its availability through these criminal groups, gangs, satisfied people's desire for alcohol (Sifakis 725). Bootlegging was a major pastime in America, especially during Prohibition. A bootlegger was someone who dealt in illegal deliveries of alcohol. Criminals used smuggling activities as a business to make as much profit as possible for themselves. They prospered the most during the Prohibition period, from January 16, 1920 until the repeal of the 18th Amendment on December 3, 1933. Most of the contraband alcohol was brought... middle of paper... fifty-four gallons of methyl alcohol to produce a huge amount of moonshine. This alcohol was sold throughout Atlanta and even in a nightclub on Auburn Avenue. A man named Eliza Foster went to a nightclub on Auburn Avenue and had a couple of drinks. Half an hour later he fell dead. On the same night both a man died in his car with a bottle of the same batch next to him, and an old lady died in her rocking chair with a bottle of the bad alcohol spilled at her feet. Because of that bad alcohol, thirteen people died that night along with hundreds of others who felt miserable, sick, and even blind, at Grady Memorial Hospital. Forty-two people ultimately died from bad alcohol, although more than five hundred were affected (112). After the mass poisonings, legal alcohol consumption in Atlanta increased by 51,2%. (113).